Bella Knitting

Toe Up Sock Experiment

Laura

Like Sarah, I’ve been playing with some sock ideas, playing with cuff designs, cast ons, bind offs, sometimes working cuff down and sometimes toe up with variations that will appeal to both experienced sock knitters and those looking to become sock knitters.

A lot of toe up sock patterns use a basic Make 1 increase, a less intimidating that a short row toe for many knitters. While I can appreciate the simplicity of this design I’ve never been a fan of using a series of Make 1 increases because in spite of every effort to work the previous knit stitches loosely I find when I work these stitches they are much tighter than their neighbors. And so I decided to try an experiment; working two sock toes (on two circulars using the fabulous Magic Cast on by Judy Becker from Knitty) with just a quick variation in the increase instructions as follows:

Make One Increases:
1.    knit round
2.    [k1, m1r, k to last st, m1L, k1] repeat on other needle

Yarn Over Make One Increase:
1.    k1, yo, k to last st, yo, k1
2.    knit across making sure to twist the yarn overs so the loop is closed.

The difference being an extra length of yarn is added on the prior row via a yarn over so the stitches are not pulled too tightly. And yes, the stitches can be worked leaning to the right and left based on which way the yarn over is worked.

I’m sure some of you may have tried working an increase with a yarn over before, Sarah illustrated the increase here, but I thought that comparing the results of these two types of increasing might prove helpful. Look, the shape of the toe is less distorted in every way:
•    The sides do not bow out
•    the base is not pulled up into a curve
•    the top is flatter
•    and the swatch is a bit wider since it is not constrained by the tight increase.

I have fun with this little experiment, next time I will be more careful working the Yarn Over Make One increases with the correct slant and I think a reverse Star Toe could be interesting.

A Plethera of Braided Color

Laura

School art projects are often times very 'interesting'. At least in my house where artistic talent seems to have passed us by. Give me some yarn and I can play for hours, give me colored pencils or paint and my attempts at art work will look like a kindergartener's first project, therefore,  what can I possibly expect from my gene-challenged children?

And so like many supportive parents faced with questionable school projects, we slap on impressed smiles, show our real enthusiasm and carefully pick appropriate adjectives; ones like interesting, creative, imaginative and impressive being careful not to use specific descriptions (like 'that's a fabulous dog honey" only to find out it was an elephant) or to use overly effusive praise that will only have them applying for art scholarships or trying out for American Idol in years to come. 

So imagine my surprise when I found myself coveting my son's art project the other day. No drawing involved in this project thank goodness just seven vibrant colors of yarn. Maybe I am the only one who has not seen this Japanese Braid but I just love this alternative to an i-cord or one of those funky knitting bobbin gadgets.

• Start with a cardboard circle about 3 inches in diameter.
• Cut eight slits to hold the yarn and a hole in the center.
• Cut lengths of seven colors of yarn at least a yard long
• Tie a slip knit at the end, drop it though the hole and attach yarn to circle slits.
• Starting at the blank spot, count three strands to the right (counterclockwise) and move than color clockwise to the empty spot. In this case the yellow will move between the orange and pink.
• Count three more strands from the new empty spot and move that yarn over. Here the green will go where the yellow used to be.
• Again and again making sure you pull the cord down as you go for even tension.

The result is a multi-colored intricately braided cord that is super easy to make. We've been taking turns while we watch TV. It's fun, hypnotic and great for all ages. Perfect party favor or carry along entertainment for parents with easily bored little ones. I may leave a few in the car in a zip lock bag.

Just look at how those colors all intertwine!

Remember those color palettes I told you about the other day?  How about digging through your stash looking for some of those fabulous combinations?  I think you'd have a lot of fun and you just might end up with a new purse strap, pillow trim, sweater edge, or curtain tie, towel trim, plant hanger, hair ribbon, belt  ... the possibilities are all there waiting for you to discover.

The Stretch Armstrong Bind-Off

Sarah

Okay, so technically this bind-off is usually referred to as the sewn bind-off, but I think that name fails to communicate just how awesomely stretchy this method is. (Do you remember Stretch Armstrong? I remember seeing the commercials as a kid and wondering exactly how long it would take to get tired of a toy whose only feature was stretchable arms and legs. Not long, I thought.)

But enough about 80s memorabilia. On to the tutorial!

The sewn bind-off is perfect for toe-up socks. You'll need to leave a tail of yarn at least 2 feet long when you're ready to bind off, which you then thread onto a tapestry needle.

Insert the tapestry needle through the first two stitches on the left-hand needle as if to purl (from right to left.)

Swing your needle around and insert it through that first stitch as if to knit (left to right.)

Slide that stitch off the needle. You've now bound off the first stitch -- hooray!

To continue, insert the tapestry needle through the next two stitches, and keep repeating the steps as outlined above.

Keep going, and the bound off edge should look something like this.

See why I call this the Stretch Armstrong bind-off? It's pretty darn stretchy, and stretchy is good.

Suspended Bind-off Tutorial

Sarah

Sorry I don't have any exciting knitting to show you -- I've been pretty busy with school and haven't had a chance to work on anything I can blog about, so Laura (smart lady) suggested I post a tutorial on the suspended bind-off. It's a great method: almost as easy as a regular bind-off, but much more elastic. If you're one of those knitters who usually has to run and find a larger needle every time you bind off, I think you'll find this useful!

Step 1: Knit the first two stitches to be bound off.

Step 2: Slip the first stitch you knit -- let's call this stitch "Fred" -- over the second stitch you knit, and onto the left-hand needle.

Step 3: Bring the right-hand needle around and insert it into the next stitch on the left-hand needle. You aren't doing anything to Fred, he's just sitting there while you work the stitch next to him.

Step 4: Now that you've knit into the stitch next to Fred, you've got two stitches on the right-hand needle again, and you can allow Fred to slide off the left-hand needle.

Step 5: The first stitch has been bound off. Repeat steps 2 through 4 to continue binding off.

Step 6: When you've reached the end of the row, only two stitches will be left.

Step 7: Slip the right-hand stitch over the other stitch and off the needle. Now cut your yarn, leaving a long enough end to weave in, and bring it through the remaining loop and pull tight to close. You're done binding off!

This is what the bound-off edge should look like. It's nice and elastic, so if you tend to bind off too tightly, I think you'll really like this method.

Provisional Cast-On Tutorial

Sarah

As promised, here's a tutorial on the crochet provisional cast-on method. This is a really useful technique, applicable to any number of project types: making a bottom-up sweater, but you don't know what type of edging you want? Use a provisional cast-on and you can easily pick up your stitches and work the bottom edge when you've finished the rest of the knitting. Want to knit toe-up socks? Use this method and work a short-row toe. Interested in knitting a shawl? Many, like the Flower Basket, ask you to start with this cast-on to create a tidy top edge. I could go on, if I didn't have a nasty cold making my brain not work good. Anyway, I hope you find this useful!

Steps 1 & 2: Make a crochet chain using waste yarn -- preferably, something smooth and in color which is readily visible against your working yarn, in approximatley the same weight. To make your chain, just grab the strand of yarn with your hook...

...and bring it through the loop. Always make the chain several chains longer than the number of stitches you need to pick up, so you have some room for error.

Step 3: When you're done making the chain as long as you need it to be (plus a few extra) cut the yarn, bring it through the last loop, tug gently to close (gently! You're going to have to undo that later) and tie a knot in that end, to remind yourself that this is the end you'll be "unzipping" from later on. Now flip your chain over and take a gander at the bumps -- they kinda look like purl bumps, right? -- on the back side (assuming the front side is the "v's" you see as you are working the chain.) You are going to pick up stitches through these bumps.

Step 4: Start picking up stitches through the bumps. I "pick" at stitches to pick them up, wrapping each one around the needle...

Step 5: ...and bringing it through. (Leave a long tail so you can weave that end in later.)

Step 6: Hooray! You have picked up your stitches. Now you can do whatever the heck you want to do -- work a short row toe, knit your sweater front, whatever.

Step 7: I was boring and just knit a few rows of stockinette and bound off.

Step 8: Remember how I mentioned in Step 3 that you should make a little knot so you will know from which end to unzip your cast on? Don't you feel smart for doing that? Pat yourself on the back, and maybe go pour yourself a glass of wine to prepare yourself for the next steps, which involve stitches being all naked and loosey-goosey.

Step 9: Take the end with the knot in it and bring it back out through the loop you drew it through to close your chain -- thus re-opening your chain. Now give that end a tug (a gentle tug, just in case there was some snaggage when you picked up your stitches.)

Step 10: I told you there would be naked stitches.

Step 11: You might want to put them on a needle, for decency's sake.

Step 12:  Yay! All done. You now have a whole whack of live stitches, ready to do your bidding!

I-Cord Bind-Off: With Bonus I-Cord!

Sarah

Lots of photos here, folks! I used the i-cord bind off on the socks I knit for Ingrid (I luuurve those socks) and it got me thinking about how much I enjoy the look of the i-cord bind off. If you haven't done it before, I hereby present you with a little tutorial on how to do so. The super-cool thing is, if you know how to do the i-cord bind-off, you also know how to do applied i-cord. It's the exact same procedure, except obviously to do an applied i-cord you need to pick up some stitches, but you apply the i-cord by doing the i-cord bind-off. Pretty nifty, huh? Also, if there's anyone out there who doesn't know plain-Jane i-cord, I have instructions for that too if you scroll down. Click on any image for a larger view.

Step 1: Git yourself some knitting. I knit the demo swatch in garter because the i-cord contrasts more against it than it would against stockinette. I-cord is basically a stockinette tube, after all.

Step 2: If you want a tidy corner edge, cast on a couple of extra stitches -- if you skip this step, the bind-off will lend a slight curve to the corner of your knitting, which is fine, if that's what you want. As Elizabeth Zimmermann would say, it's "knitter's choice."

Step 3: Knit the first two stitches, then EITHER knit two together OR ssk (slip the next two stitches knitwise, then knit them together from this orientation -- a left-slanting decrease.) I use the ssk decrease because it's my personal preference. Try both and use what you prefer, there's not much difference in the final product.

Step 4: See the three stitches on your right-hand needle? Slip them all back over to the left-hand needle.

Step 5: Pull the yarn across the back of those first three stitches and knit two and decrease (k2tog or ssk) again, just as you did in step 3. You never turn your work, you're just pulling the yarn across the back to knit that first stitch. Repeat steps 4 and 5 over and over and over...

Step 6: ...and your bind-off will start to look like this. See? it's a three-stitch tube of stockinette across the top of the work. I guess step 6 isn't really much of a step, but I do think it's nice to take a second and admire your own work.

Step 7: Ah-ha! You have reached the end, there are three stitches left. What do you do?  If you are done binding off, cut your yarn leaving a tail at least six inches long, thread it on a tapestry needle, weave through the remaining three stitches, pull tight, and weave in your end. Or, if you want to continue, you can do so, and that would be just a plain old i-cord. Not acquainted with friendly Mr. I-cord? Read on.

I-Cord
Step 1: You've got those three stitches, right? Well, it doesn't actually have to be three stitches, but if you're going to make an i-cord, it should be a small enough number of stitches that you can pull the yarn tightly across the back to get it to curl into a tube. (Of course if you want a bigger tube, you could always close up the back by using a crochet hook on those ladders of yarn -- Nona has a great tutorial on how to do so.) When knitting i-cord, use either two DPNs or a circular needle so that you can just slide your stitches over instead of dealing with the whole slipping-back-to-the-left-hand-needle business.

Anyway, the yarn is coming out of the back of that third stitch on the needle -- just pull it across the back of the work so you can knit. You always knit in i-cord, you never purl because you never turn your work.

Step 2: slide your stitches down to the other end of the needle so you can knit them again. Keep doing this for years and years until you have the length you want, tugging the end of the i-cord occasionally to help evenly distribute the yarn carried across the back.

Step 3: Uh, again, this isn't really a step, but it doesn't hurt to stop and check out your work. Here's the back:

You can see that the i-cord is, indeed, a wee tube. It's a pretty handy tube, because you can "weave in" your ends by just running your tapestry needle through it. You can also kind of see the back of the i-cord bind-off in this photo, which as you can see looks pretty much the same on both sides. Neat-o.

Duplicate Stitch Tutorial

Sarah

As promised, here's a tutorial on duplicate stitch! Before I even got pregnant, I knit a quick little baby sweater and duplicate-stitched the word "baby" on the front. I didn't know whether he would be a boy, or a girl, but I felt pretty certain he would be a baby -- and I thought it would be pretty funny for a baby's sweater to state the completely obvious. (Which reminds me, it's Measure's 3-month birthday today! Maybe I should bake a cake.)

Duplicate stitch is useful for when you want to add a little something to your knitting, but both stranded knitting and intarsia would be fiddly. Also, while you definitely want to plan stranded patterns and intarsia ahead of time, you can add duplicate stitching long after you've knitted the garment.

Click on the chart for a larger image, and feel free to use it if it works for you. Writing your own charts is pretty easy, though -- your knitting is done, so you can just sit down and check out the amount of stitches and rows you want to work over, and chart accordingly. I knit the swatch for this tutorial in an aran-weight cotton blend (in Project Spectrum colors, naturally), and knit it a little loose so the stitches would be clear, but really I think this works best when your knitting is tight -- it helps the duplicate stitch to "pop" and cover the stitch underneath.

To begin working, cut a length of contrast yarn and thread it through a tapestry needle. No need to knot, just be sure to leave a tail of about 6" so you can weave it in later. Bring your needle through your first stitch (I started from the bottom left-hand corner of the first "b" in the chart), around and under the base of the "v" in the stitch above.

Bring the needle back down and out back the way you came.

Each additional stitch is easy -- just go up, under, around, then through the top of the stitch below.

Need to go sideways? You can do that.

Downward? Yup, that's easy too. Just go down through the bar between the legs of the "v" of the stitch you wish to duplicate, then go up and around as usual.

Even if you're following a chart, take a careful look at your work now and then to see if you like how it's going, because each stitch is tedious to undo. The result, though, is pretty nice -- give it a try!

Cheers to New Ideas

Laura

I've been working on a few lace projects lately. Swatching a bit of this and a bit of that. I found that traditional stitch markers were driving me nuts. They are too large, too hard and awkward on small needle sizes.

So did I head to my LYS looking for new stitch markers? No, of course not. I started combing the hair care aisle of my local Target (sorry, just had to do it). These mini hair bands are perfect for my needs. They are firm but flexible, do not interfere with tiny stitches, and with their bright colors they're easy to spot. Wait, there's more. There are so many colors I can code the beginning and end of pattern segments and - last but not least - they are so inexpensive I can just cut them off when I don't need them.

I also think they work well at the other end of the spectrum on US size 13, 15 and even 17 needles. The larger size hair band moves easily on these bulky needles.

Got any unique knitting tools you'de like to share with the rest of us?

Crocheted Embellishment Tutorial

Sarah

Here's a photo tutorial on how to add a simple crocheted embellishment to knitting. I just think this is such an easy way to add some pretty touches to plain stockinette -- and as I said yesterday, it's pretty easy to undo, so experiment!

You'll need something to embellish (stockinette seems to work best), a contrast yarn, and a crochet hook that works with your knitting and your embellishment yarn. You can be pretty flexible with the crochet hook size -- as long as it's big enough to grab your embellishment yarn, but not so ginormous as to permanently disfigure the knitting it has to pass through, you'll be fine.

Poke the head of your hook through your knitted fabric and grab your embellishment yarn, making sure to leave a tail long enough to weave in later.

Bring the loop of embellishment yarn through the fabric to the front.

Leaving the first loop on the neck of the crochet hook, poke the head back through the fabric (in whatever direction you want your embellishment to go) and grab another loop of your working length of embellishment yarn.

Bring it back to the front. There are now two loops on the neck of the hook.

Bring the second loop through the first.

Continue in this manner to create embellishment. The great thing about this is the ease with which you can move in any direction, "drawing" on your knitting -- and if you decide you don't like how it's going, to rip back all you need to do is remove the hook and tug on the working end of the yarn. To finish, simply cut the yarn, pull the tail end through to the front, over the last loop, and back through to the wrong side of the work.

Not your thing? I'll be doing a duplicate stitch tutorial next. Stay tuned!

A Better Way To Bead

Sarah

Carol from the comments asked about the crochet method of beading I mentioned in my last post, so I figured I'd put together a little tutorial for anyone who hasn't run across this nifty method of beading before.

Whenever I've used beads in the past, I strung them on the yarn and then slid them down as needed. There are some obvious downsides to this method -- if you've got a lot of beads, they can wear on the yarn and cause it to break (which is exactly what happened to me a few days ago while I was working on my Mystery Stole.) You also have to know exactly how many beads you're going to be using beforehand, so that you can string them onto the yarn. There is a better way! I have tried the crochet method of beading, and I am now a convert. If you haven't tried this method before, here's how it goes:

First, you place your bead on your crochet hook. The Beadwrangler page has some recommendations on what size hook to use with what beads -- and obviously, that size is very small!

Next, using your hook, lift up the stitch you want to bead.

Now you can slide your bead down over the stitch, and slip the stitch back onto the needle to be knit.

The beaded stitch is now ready to be knit, and on you go!